pak choi soba salad with asian dressing & spare ribs

certain someone had been talking about spare ribs for the longest time. he'd seen a cooking show where they barbequed spare ribs...with all the snow bbq isn't going to happen so i decided to bake some in the oven.

this is a no-brainer, place the ribs in a heavy duty plastic bag and pour in the sauce...

...mix well and let marinate over night, or at least a few hours.

found these in the pantry and thought it was time to utilize them. the asian markets have such a variety, i always buy something with the good intention to cook something with it soon, like the next day, sometimes the items lurk around a wee bit longer...

normally i'd cook this much for one person but since they were going into a salad...

before cooking the noodles, i put the ribs on rimmed baking tray lined with foil (clean-up is no much easier) and placed the tray in 180C oven for 40min, after that hiked up the heat to 200C and put the fan on for 5 mins more.

got the pak choi at oriental market in helsinki. i see their point in selling them in 1 kg packages but that's a lot of pak choi...need to ask them to sell ½ kg packages as well.

rinsed the pak choi well and chopped quite thinly...

...like it did with this very bendy spring onion.

normally i'd use red chilli but i had some green ones left from the indian cooking. used only about a half of one since they were rather hot...

made the dressing with soya sauce, sesame oil, grated ginger and the minced chilli. the soba noodles were rinsed with cold water after cooking, strained them and mixed the dressing first with the noodles...

...before adding the pak choi and spring onion and mixing well, yammy!

there are about 1600 pics from india and i'm still in the middle of the arduous job of sorting them out...they will appear, one day.

pork at the cottage

spent a few days at the cottage over weekend. once i tell my parents that we're coming, mom usually buys something that i then cook. this time she had bought pork tenderloin, i figured fennel and apples would go well with it.

i roughly chopped one big fennel, cored and quartered 2 apples (forgot which kind but you should get ones that hold their shape and don't cook into mush), peeled and quartered 3 small red onions.

browned the tenderloins on high heat two at the time. after browning all the meat, quickly browned the fennel and onions, took them off, put the meat back...

...then placed vegetables on top, poured in ½ cup white wine and 2 tbsp cider vinegar and left to slowly simmer (on the wood burning stove) for 40 mins...

...no salt, no pepper, so good. i think i originally got the idea for pork/fennel/apple from either bon appetit or eating well -magazines. i also noticed that monika had made some. monika's pictures are so much nicer than mine...

woods around the cottage are a wonderland for the dog, as we can let him run all he can. the snow hides small creatures...

...that might...

...just might...

...nah, no mice this time.

i think the dog looks like a mongoose sitting like that, but those two hold their hands/paws like that quite often.

after feeding the dog we need to put him on the runner because after two days at the cottage he starts to get a little wild and we would have hard time catching him. the dog has figured out how to open the door, one night he managed to escape as we had forgotten to lock it...we woke up to freezing breeze, door wide open and the dog gone...breakfast brought him back.

the lake hasn't frozen yet, though the water sure looks very cold. unusual but not unheard of for the lake not to be frozen in january, goes to show how mild a winter we've had, so far.

old fish trap collecting snow.

back at the shack...i just love those pinkish shades of winter lights.

cottage food II: grilled lemon herby chicken, raspberry tart, and others

i've been back and forth at the cottage, as i had leave last week. cottage is always, well mostly anyways, about simple food. here, grilling flat chicken (martha calls it spatchcocked, how to here) while enjoying the scenery.







before you go thinking i've used semi-rotten meat...that bluish color comes from sage and thyme that i put under the skin with very thin slices of lemon.







about half an hour into grilling the birds (on medium-low) i noticed all the fat on the gridle...and remembered that there was some left-over boiled potatoes in the fridge. the chicken fat did wonders on the potatoes, just don't tell your cardiologist! total time for the chicken was about 45 mins.







made a poor man's greek salad (no olives) to go with the chicken, basil on the side. if it had been me, mom and certain someone the basil would have been in the salad (basil works surprisingly well with feta cheese), but for some reason dad will not eat "greens" in a salad...go figure.







naturally, i did make a stock from the backbones. the sage and thyme gave a strong flavor, the stock'll make a great soup later on (it frozen now).







mom then...not sure her medication is alright, the amount of energy she has, wears me out. she's been in the woods for weeks now, picking this and that, and these raspberries. the wild kind is far superior to the garden variety, so sweet and bursting with flavor. as there was so much berries, i needed to figure out what to do with them...







...and a recipe for blueberry tartlets in maku magazine gave me this idea...(it seems that the recipe isn't on the website yet.)
i made the crust with all-purpose flour and some oats, butter and one yolk. there really isn't a recipe but any shortbread type crust will do.






for the custard layer i used half of a vanilla pod, scraped the seeds and blended them into sugar with the blade of a knife, the seeds will distribute more evenly into liquid or flour. i learned this trick from tv (the great educator!), a danish cooking show called "the sweet life". like the name says it's all about the sweet goodness...now, if danish wasn't so hard on my ears...







this trick (the cling film right on the surface of the custard) i learned from anna, i think...







the crust could have been a tad thinner, other than that, perfect summer tart. the glaze was made with jelly sugar that doesn't have any animal products in it.







from sweet to savory, as mentioned earlier, the chaterelles are plentyful. here, sauteed with onions and butter (let your conscience tell how much you can use), the longer in lower heat, the better.







a slaw with carrots, white cabbage, root celeriac, flat-leaf parsley, chives and mayo.







mom's potatoes...from the ground into a pot in 5 mins, they taste amazing, but new potatoes usually do. or maybe it's the fact that mom buried fish parings into the ground with the seed potatoes...







my new favourite, giant white onions grilled on low heat, for a long time. you could use butter, but it's really not necessary, tiny amount of oil will do. i've contemplated on adding some balsamic reduction to this but so far it's just perfect as is.







i have a handy electric grill at the cottage, perfect for the onions, and keeping other (gas)grilled goods warm.

midsummer, long overdue...

midsummer came and went...i had managed to get the midsummer eve (friday) free from work. originally we had planned to drive to the cottage already on thursday evening to beat the traffic. however, a storm started to develop on thursday afternoon and we decided to postpone and leave early on friday morning. although, on principle, i'm agaist waking up early on a day-off. we were on the road by 6.30 am. (yawn)

almost as soon as we arrived, dad and certain someone started to heat up the pit for the roast. pit roast / bandit roast is somewhat of a summer tradition at the cottage. if we can get everyone there for midsummer, we make the roast then, if not, my older niece's birthday in another option. pics from earlier roasts here and here.







the dog got to come along. his table manners need a bit of adjusting...







as the roast would happen only on saturday, i grilled some chicken (martinated in teriyaki and red chilli sauce). as you can see, not exactly a warm summer day...







back to the roast...the pit needed attention, here placing some stones on the fire to heat them real good...







as it was raining, and not so warm, we placed a huge lid on the fire to keep all the heat in the pit...







...meanwhile, certain someone was heating the sauna.







midsummer eve, at 11pm. long are gone the days that i stayed awake until the sun came up...







the sky had a weird pinkish color.







on midsummer day, saturday, we once again made a fire in the pit, and started preparing the parcels that would be buried in the pit...we had a moose roast (drunk from soaking in red wine for 2 days), pork roast (just with salt&pepper) and chicked (stuffed with lemon, parsley and garlic)







first the roasts were wrapped in parchment paper, then foil, then foil (5 layers of foil) and finally, tightly in wet newspaper.







the dog played boss...







dad emptying the pit of stones and embers.







digging a hole just big enough...







...for the three parcels to fit in.







the stones and embers were placed on top of the parcels...







...and another fire was started on top.







some three hrs later, once it had started smelling like something was cooking, we started digging out the parcels.







looking good...







the parcels were extremely hot...







the fat on top of the pork roast had become a little charred, but we hadn't planned on eating it anyway, the meat was tender and juicy.







the chicken was falling off the bones.







the moose...little weird color because of the red wine but tasted perfect. i'm still quite not sure if this roast was better warm or cold...







we made three salads to go with the roasts, from left: my tabbouleh (tomatoes, red onions, parsley, avocado, black pepper, olive oil, lime juice, and couscous), cole slaw (cabbage, carrots, celery, chives, mayo, sour cream, white vinegar, salt, white pepper) and a pasta salad (whole wheat pasta, corn, peas, swiss cheese, meetwursti (salami type finnish sausage) black pepper, white balsamico and olive oil.







for the dessert i made a peach galette with vanilla flavoured whipped cream. where's the picture? well, i had already licked my plate before i realized that i should have taken some... with 10 people around, one forgets such trivial things.

lately, it seems that i don't have as much free time as i used to. as of june 1st our schedule at worked changed so that we go to work 2 to 4 hrs earlier than before and our shifts end that much earlier. in case you don't already know, i am so not a morning person. for me, going to work at noon is like going to work in the morning, i'm barely awake and functioning. now, i don't have time to make coffee before work, let alone blog! they also shortened the shifts on sundays (money, money...) and that neads longer days on weekdays...

oh, how i long for the night shifts! i had all the time in the world, i could even squeeze in some knitting during the night, as long as there wasn't anything else to be done at work. i always felt that when i worked later in the evenings and in the night, the more i got done in my free time. i don't know, hopefully i'll get adjusted to this new schedule, eventually...